“I know I’m a clumsy sort of ass. I suppose I gave it away. Dashed if you don’t beat me;” and he shook his head in perplexity as he first tried to relight his cigarette and then threw it away and started a fresh one.
“Did Major Sampayo tell you why he thought I was leaving in such a hurry?”
“Here, hold on. I’m getting a bit afraid of you.”
“I am the last man in Lisbon you need be afraid of, lieutenant. I have the greatest desire for your friendship and—if you would like to give it—your confidence.”
I spoke earnestly and he glanced at me with a hunted, harassed look in his eyes, and then reached for the brandy again. I put it out of his reach. “I never was more serious in my life,” I added. “If I can ever help you, you have only to ask.”
He got up. He was pale and shaking. “I think I’ll go,” he said.
“Very well. But don’t forget what I’ve said. I mean it, on my honour;” and I held out my hand.
Instead of taking it he looked intently into my eyes and then, to my surprise, and pain, he seemed to crumple up suddenly. He threw himself back into the chair, covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.
It is hateful to see a man cry, but the feeling I had for him was rather pity than contempt. His tears told me so much. He was the merest tool in Sampayo’s hands, and his weak nature was as clay for the stronger man’s moulding. Miralda’s words flashed across my mind—that behind her betrothal to Sampayo was a “story of shame and crime.” Here was the key to it, I was convinced.
The shock of learning that I knew Sampayo was in the background, his fear of what I knew, followed by my earnest offer of friendship, confidence and help, coming at a moment when he was shaken by a night of dissipation, had unmanned him.